20 Movie Endings You Can No Longer See

Every good story needs a good ending, and if you trip up when bowing out, you can be rest assured that people will remember that more than anything else you actually accomplished. As a result, endings in film are stressed over, often changing between scripts and production, on sets, or after showing a group of people and asking them, what do you think? Whatever the reason though, the films we're talking about today have gone through changes that very few people can say they've seen both sides of. These movie endings you can no longer see. Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 Whilst everyone remembers The Blair Witch Project as the film that popularised the found footage idea, one thing that remains unappreciated is the ambiguity of its ending. Whilst its sequel largely forewent the shaky camera of the original, director Joe Berlinger intended to keep a similar tone in Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2. After visiting the site of the original mysteries, a teenage group of ragtag Blair Witch fans find themselves accused of murdering a group of tourists that they'd encountered on the way. The planned conclusion saw the main cast plead not guilty, but a found videotape shows otherwise twisting the narrative that the film had shown us and leaving the audience questioning the truth. Furthermore, the film was given a purposeful linear narrative to give the story a descent into madness feeling. After Berlinger showed his film to the studio, however, it seems as though they went about changing just as much as they could muster. In order to make it more contemporary, they requested more violence in the final act and additional shots were filmed that sapped the intended ambiguity of the tourists' deaths. The studio also cut the film's final scene into pieces and interspersed it throughout the story, changing the film's linear descent into, well, a mess. Thankfully, hardcore Blair Witch fans have done the best they can to restore Berlinger's vision to decent results, but hindsight editing can't help the film's critical admonishment. Will Dies – Rise of the Planet of the Apes Rise of the Planet of the Apes concludes memorably with the ape leader, Caesar, bidding his human companion, Will, an emotional farewell and disappearing into the forest. But the originally filmed ending was considerably more dramatic, with Will attempting to protect Caesar from the owner of the primate shelter, John, and getting fatally shot as a result. This then led to the apes massacring the armed humans who pursued them into the forest. Yet, producer Dylan Clark felt that this scene was idiotic, even when it was being filmed. He said, We were shooting and I remember saying, you know what, this is just gonna be a bummer. People are gonna be like, oh, it was a dumb scene is the truth. We had Brian Cox coming out of nowhere and shooting James Franco, the scene, dramatically, was idiotic. And worse, it just made you feel bad. It was just like, oh my god, this is the worst movie ever. And so, just a month before the film was due to release, the decision was made to reshoot the ending. And given how much disdain Clark clearly had for that original ending, it's sadly unlikely that it'll ever be screened outside of those who worked on it. The Twin Towers in Men in Black 2 The original Men in Black movie was loosely based on a comic book series called The Men in Black. That series changed ownership a bunch of times before eventually ending up in the hands of Marvel. The second Men in Black movie ends with the good guys launching an alien princess back into space via a giant UFO and then neuralizing the entirety of New York City with the Statue of Liberty. It definitely makes more sense once you've seen it. The film almost made use of another famous New York landmark, although one with a much darker history than Lady Liberty. The film's ending was originally set against the backdrop of the Twin Towers, but the events of 9/11 understandably changed that. Men in Black 2 was actually still filming when the towers fell, and production was suspended whilst America dealt with the tragedy. Again, this probably didn't change things too much in the grand scheme of things, but it's weird to think that this film is linked to one of the biggest disasters of the 21st century. Doctor Strangelove Doctor Strangelove has one of cinema's most striking conclusions. Faced with the looming reality of worldwide nuclear war, eccentric scientist Dr. Strangelove rises unexpectedly from his wheelchair with a plan to stop the destruction, and explosions suddenly go off around the world. Audiences were left with a sarcastic laugh of despair that no other film in its era could achieve. It also has one of the industry's most discussed alternative endings that is nearly too balmy to be believed. In the original script, the film continued with a pie fight in the Pentagon's war room this 1960s classic originally closed by parodying the warfront with a battle of cream and pastry so close was this to being the case that not only was it shot it was also shown to test audiences that included critics director Kubrick felt that the final scene became too farcical and worse yet his actors had lost focus in the fun of the pie throwing and had actually started laughing on camera the final nail came when a preview of the film was due to land on the same day as the real life assassination of John F. Kennedy the line in the scene that exclaimed our gallant young president has been struck down in his prime, suddenly felt too close to the bone. Thus, Kubrick found the right point to cut the final scenes off of Strangelove, and they haven't ever been seen since. Jyn and Cassian run across Scarif's beach. Rogue One, a Star Wars story. Now, it's no secret that Rogue One was massively overhauled during post-production, with Disney splashing out on five weeks' worth of reshoots in order to fix major sequences in the movie, especially in its third act. As a result, numerous scenes from the trailers ended up not appearing in the final film, including a thrilling-looking climax in which Jyn and Cassian sprint across a Scarif beach whilst being fired upon by AT-ATs. Ultimately, director Gareth Edwards confirmed that the ending was retooled primarily for pacing reasons. Originally, Jyn and Cassian had to run across the beach in order to reach the communications tower where they could transmit the Death Star plans to the rebels. But to compress the finale, the tower was moved into the Empire's main base, negating the need for the Mad Dash. In Edwards' own words, he said, In cutting the film, it just felt too long. We had to find ways to compress the third act, which was quite long as it was. And one real, fast, brutal solution was to put the tower in the base, so that they don't have to run across the beach and do all of that stuff to get there. That became a decision that eliminated the shots you see in the trailer of the backs of Cassian and Jyn. While Edwards' rationale seems reasonable, it's a shame that the more elongated alternate ending has never been shown outside of the Lucasfilm brain trust, because, let's face it, it looked terrific. Ash's curse in The Crow: City of Angels Sticking with tragedy, let's move on to The Crow, a film more famous for its backstory than its plot. Actor Brandon Lee was shot and killed on the set of the movie after a prop gun was incorrectly loaded. The accident sent shockwaves around the industry and has tainted the film ever since. This is why when a sequel to The Crow was announced, people were a little bit skeptical. Still, Hollywood got a Hollywood and The Crow City of Angels was made. Vincent Perez took on the titular superhero mantle, playing a resurrected version of Ash Corvin. The film ends with the vigilante mourning the loss of his new love interest before heading off into the afterlife to be reunited with her and his son. The original ending as conceived by director Tim Pope saw Ash cursed to walk the earth forever never to see his lover or his son ever again this proved too bleak for the studio who forced Pope to change it to a more hopeful one more hopeful the guy still dies at the end of it Brazil according to Universal who was set to handle the U.S. release of Terry Gilliam's Brazil the reactions from international and European audiences to the dystopian black comedy were unsatisfactory Brazil's lead character Sam, who has spent the film struggling against a bureaucracy that has pinned a string of terrorist attacks on him, ends the story thinking that he's evaded his captors and avoided torture. However, it's all revealed to be an illusion in his head. As he stares, smiling madly into the middle distance and humming to himself, studio head Sid Sheinberg demanded that the film be given a happier ending, cutting around the story and reusing footage where possible so that love interest Jill survives and Sam makes it out of the city to start a new life. But the egg landed firmly on the face of Universal when, having screened his version to critics in secret, Gilliam's Brazil won a plethora of awards. It forced the studio's hand, and they released it in its original edited format. Ergo, the version of this film that you would struggle to see today is the Sid Sheinberg cut. It did appear on a Criterion DVD and Laserdisc of all things, but with technology moving forward and not always so well preserved, it may be a matter of time before this version, and its sappier ending goes from hard to find to totally lost. Ava's Point of View Reveal – Ex Machina Alex Garland's terrific sci-fi thriller Ex Machina almost wrapped up with an even more provocative ending. In the final cut of the movie, android Ava escapes Nathan's secure facility, leaves poor Caleb trapped inside, and rides a helicopter to civilization where she's able to effortlessly blend in. The original cut offered a slight tweak on this grim finale, though, by presenting greater insight into precisely how Ava views the world. When Ava speaks with the helicopter pilot before boarding, we briefly see the events from Ava's perspective, revealing that she interprets the pilot's words as nothing more than sounds and pulses. Basically, Ava wasn't approximating traditional human interaction nearly as close as Nathan and Caleb and we, the audience, actually assumed. Her interpretation of the world around her was totally abstract and unique, and whether that qualifies as consciousness or not is left for the viewer to decide. Garland has never confirmed why the ending was changed, though Oscar Isaac theorized that maybe it just didn't work in the cut. Either way, it's clearly something that fans would love to see one day. The clones attack in Judge Dredd. The original movie's plot revolves around Dredd's evil half-brother Rico and the army of clones he plans to use to take over Mega City One. Brothers, what are they like? In the theatrical cut of the movie, the clones are shown waking up and that's it. They just sort of wither away and die, taking Rico's lab with them. It's a bit of an anti-climax, really. This might be because scenes were originally filmed of Dredd blasting his way through the clones in a goo-filled rampage. However, Big Sly wanted the film to be more family-friendly, and so the violence sequence was cut. Um, he wanted a Judge Dredd film to be more family-friendly. Had he even read the comic books? The guy's name is literally Dredd. Misery A difference between the Stephen King novel Misery and the 1990 Rob Reiner directed movie adaptation became its most iconic moment. In the book, crazed superfan Annie tries to stop the escape of her captured favourite writer Paul Sheldon by removing his foot with an axe. In order for Paul to come out of the motion picture version in a more triumphant way, Reiner and company decided it might be best for Annie to simply smash Paul's ankle in with a hammer. Seems like Paul can't catch a break either way. most certainly the smallest most amusing but keen-eyed change to ever come from a test audience preview was the suggestion to reshoot the ending of Misery where Paul months later is haunted by his experiences why because and i quote he needs to walk with a cane paul was too healthy after his experiences and it was too much of a suspension of disbelief in all fairness it's a good point but it makes you wonder how many people called this out because apparently it was enough of a pressing issue to fire up the production trucks again, as the scene was indeed re-shot. It's presumably almost identical, except this time Paul gets a walking stick to lean on. The caneless ending of misery is not really something we particularly need, and as such it's something that has either been destroyed or locked away in a vault. Regardless, it's a fun story and an anomaly in an otherwise drama-free production. John Connor dies, becomes a Terminator. Terminator Salvation When Terminator Salvation director MCG was recently asked if there was anything he wished he could have done differently with the movie, he offered up a simple response. I would have stuck with the dark ending that we photographed that got cut. Now, MCG is referring to the film's stunning original ending, which would have seen John Connor die after being mortally wounded in the climax. But human-Terminator hybrid Marcus then volunteers to have John's skin fitted over his own body, effectively allowing John Connor to live on as a mythic, hopeful figure for humanity despite his actual death. The dramatic irony of Connor becoming a Terminator speaks for itself. Yet this ending ultimately received pushback from both test audiences and the studio, with the latter feeling it was way too dark. And so, a new ending was shot in which Connor survives his grim injuries after Marcus offers up his own heart for a transplant, making the ultimate sacrifice for the cause. Not a bad ending in of itself, but not nearly as interesting as what was originally planned, nor a scripted yet unfilmed version where the Terminator John Connor gets taken over by Skynet and murders all the key members of the human resistance. Jane waits in Thor After bonding with Natalie Portman's Jane Foster, Chris Hemsworth's Thor is heartbroken when he has to sever the connection between his world and hers. Unbeknownst to him, Jane waits for Thor on Earth. In fact, she almost did a whole lot more waiting. In a deleted ending, Jane and her colleagues Darcy and Dr. Eric Selvig devise a beacon to attract Thor's attention. There's also a mention of S.W.O.R.D. from Selvig, a branch of S.H.I.E.L.D. that wouldn't make its official MCU debut until WandaVision. If this scene had been included, it might have made audiences care just that little bit more about Thor and Jane's relationship. Still, considering Natalie Portman vanishes between Thor 2 and Thor 4, maybe it wasn't worth it. And no, the archival footage from Endgame does not count. Somewhere in Time 1980s romance fantasy flick Somewhere in Time is, by general consensus, a fine if not fairly middle of the road film. It explores time travel as obtained by hypnosis, so that our lead character Richard Collier, portrayed by Christopher Reeve, can meet his otherwise unobtainable girl of his dreams that he sees in an old photograph. Something else that appears to be unobtainable is the original cut of the film. Somewhere in Time ends with the death of its protagonist, and through the point of view of the lens we see Collier's spirit finally reunited with the woman he loves. It's a fine ending but according to Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeffrey Wells it was much better the way that he remembers it. Executing a technique that was rare in those days Somewhere in Time originally ended with an extraordinary and extra long tracking shot that led us through the halls of the hospital and into the arms of Collier's love very slowly and very deliberately. In the 1980s with very little trickery available the shot would have been incredibly hard to capture. According to the film's cinematographer, Izadore Mankowski, Universal Studios thought that it was too long and trimmed it down to a few edits, fading parts of the shot together to get the point across quicker. And then, well, it appears they threw the reel in the bin, since as far as Mankowski knows, the original version no longer exists. Kate Finds the Aliens – The Thing, 2011 It's not much of a secret that 2011's The Thing prequel was significantly reworked during post-production, with the studio ultimately mandating that the extensive practical effects be effectively painted over with CGI. Smart move. Much of the third act was also reshot, with the director revealing that the film's original ending had protagonist Kate entering the alien spacecraft and discovering the bodies of the original alien pilots, which had been killed by the Thing. This ending would have implied that the aliens attempted to crash the ship in order to kill the Thing, which they had collected from another planet before it managed to escape confinement aboard their spacecraft. The Thing then assimilated one of the aliens in an attempt to fly the ship away from Earth. But ultimately, following test screenings, it was decided that this ending had got too much going on, and so it was ultimately reshot to remove the aliens entirely, replacing them instead with an animatronic pilot with a glowing hologram. Peter's grandfather in Guardians of the Galaxy Now there are plenty of unanswered questions in the MCU. Another query surrounds Peter Quill and his extended family. We see a big group of them gathered around Quill's mother's bedside right at the start of Guardians of the Galaxy, presumably to take Peter in after his mother passes away. We all know that never happens. Instead, the young boy runs away, gets abducted by Ravagers, and becomes one of the universe's greatest heroes. But what about his family? What became of them? That question was nearly answered in the film's ending, according to director James Gunn. The man behind the Guardians explained that the film's original ending would have seen Peter's grandfather still waiting for him back on Earth. This was removed, however, as Gunn believed this ending would be too freakin' sad. Well, yeah, of course it would. You really wanted to go straight from Ain't No Mountain High Enough right into an old man waiting for his kidnapped grandson? Dawn of the Dead After being held up in a shopping mall for months following the end of the world, Dawn of the Dead's surviving duo Peter and Fran find themselves in jeopardy as raiding bikers cause their safe haven to become suddenly far less safe. With barriers and defences now down, hordes of zombies begin to pour up into the shopping mall's offices. They're once bunker and now home under attack, the two race to the roof to get aboard their helicopter to make their uncertain journey onwards. Whilst the version we've all seen ends ambiguously, the original script was a lot darker and more definitive about things. According to special effects guru Tom Savini, the suicide ending was indeed shot. George A. Romero spent some years denying this before admitting in a DVD commentary that some work had been done on it. Evidence of it still exists in the film, making this the only entry on a list that you still kind of see. Peter puts a gun to his head for a moment, and Fran's way out was to include deliberately decapitating herself on the helicopter's blades, a chilling callback to an earlier scene with an unfortunate zombie. At the very least, knowing that the script called for Peter and Fran to commit suicide makes the final scenes of Dawn make a lot more sense. Jean Grey battles a Skrull Armada in space, Dark Phoenix. The final major movie in Fox's X-Men universe was put through the post-production mangle, with a large portion of the third act ultimately being reshot. Now, originally, Dark Phoenix saw the X-Men battling the Skrulls rather than the lesser-known Gabari, and the movie concluded with an epic space battle in which Jean Grey reached her final Phoenix form before obliterating a Skrull armada. And as for antagonist Vuck, well, she would have faced off against Jean Grey, Cyclops, and Professor X in a more intimate fight set at the United Nations. However, this ending was scrapped in favor of a climactic set piece that takes place primarily on a bloody train. As for the original ending that was nixed, well, James McAvoy suggested it was because the filmmakers realised that it had excessive similarities to a recently released superhero movie, believed to be either Captain Marvel with its space-set final battle, or Captain America Civil War, which similarly had a more low-key fight. Even so, it sounds way more interesting than the relatively tepid ending that we got. Slattery Explodes in Iron Man 3 It's safe to say that longtime Iron Man fans were less than thrilled when legendary villain The Mandarin was revealed to be nothing more than a dingy British actor in Iron Man 3. The fact that The Mandarin, one of Iron Man's greatest-ever foes, was reduced to a punchline upset a lot of people. They probably would have killed Slattery if they had the chance. Well, their wish almost came true. An unused ending would have seen Slattery accidentally inject himself with the Extremis virus that gives Killian his powers in the movie. Except in this case, Trev doesn't get fantastical strength or the ability to breathe fire, he blows up. Slattery wasn't the best character in the world, but did he really deserve this? The roaches infiltrate humanity. Mimic. Now, Mimic is far from director Guillermo del Toro's finest work, though the production was marred by the constant meddling of producer Bob Weinstein, who felt that the film wasn't scary enough and even tried to get del Toro fired during shooting del Toro for his part called it one of the worst experiences of his life okay then good the director's original ending though was considered way more provocative than the one that was actually released you see dr susan tyler and dr Peter Mann still meet up at the Grand Central Station but hear the sound of cockroaches around them implying that the man-sized judas breed cockroaches have managed to successfully infiltrate humanity. But test audiences reportedly hated this ending, and so a new, happier ending was shot which categorically saw the Judas breed wiped out and humanity prevail. Though a grotty video clip of the original ending was posted online back in 2011, it sadly disappeared off the internet since, seemingly without a trace. Rogue doesn't take the cure in X-Men The Last Stand. The third installment in the original X-Men film trilogy, The Last Stand tries and fails to mush together about four different huge storylines from the comics. The Dark Phoenix saga, the X-Men vs. the Brotherhood of Mutants, Xavier's death, it's all here, and it's all lost in the shuffle of a bogged-down, bloated movie. Another story that somehow found its way into the mix was the invention of a cure for mutation. This appeals particularly to Rogue, whose energy-draining powers prevent her from establishing any sort of physical relationship. In the actual ending to the film, it's revealed that Rogue took the cure to be with her boyfriend, Iceman. The misogynistic undertones of a woman sacrificing something unique about her to be with a man are plain to see and could easily have been avoided. A scene was filmed where Rogue returned to the mansion with her powers still intact. This would have been a much more powerful ending, showing the young woman controlling her mutation rather than the other way around. Quicksilver lives in Avengers Age of Ultron. One of the biggest swerves in MCU history came at the end of Avengers Age of Ultron. Everyone and their dogs thought Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye was going to die. They'd spent the entire film trying to make him interesting, even giving him a secret family to really crank up that sadness factor when he eventually snuffed it. And yet, he didn't. Instead, Aaron Taylor-Johnson's Quicksilver got axed instead, actually sacrificing himself to save Hawkeye. What a waste of time that was. Joss Whedon actually shot a version of the film's final battle where Quicksilver did not die, just in case Marvel didn't like his idea of killing him off. There also exists out there footage of him joining the Avengers in the final scene, fully suited and booted. However, none of this footage was ever used as Whedon got his way. Yet another example of Joss Whedon ruining somebody's life.